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Alien Registration Number  - Self Portrait -

Group Exhibition / 2003 / Kyoto Seika University, Kyoto, Japan

This work is based on my alien registration number.
I have made various works using Alien registration number. This piece is the first one I made in the “Number series”. I made it when I graduated from university. This is a photographic record of writing my alien registration number on my back. I documented the number on my back as it slowly faded away as the days went by. I exhibited seven photos of a week. The back represents my social background figuratively. And the back is a part that I cannot write by myself. It also contains the meaning that it is always written by others.
The background that forms my identity is not absolute. Frameworks such as society, nation, ethnicity and community have changed, reshaped and sometimes been lost. I wanted to express the fact that they change over time, just as my body changes. However, I felt that there were more imaginative expansions and possibilities for this alien registration number.
This very simple number also seemed to represent my diluting ethnic identity and diaspora situation. But on the other hand, it also looked like a number representing many hours and people.
I felt the possibility of imagination there.

“The Number series” began with this “Alien Registration Number -Self Portrait-” and then have continued to work with different forms.
I expanded my imagination from one simple number to the existence of an individual, one life, and history of immigration. It was as if every time I made one piece, another new idea was born.
As I worked on the piece, I had the feeling that the cold numbers were changing warm things.

copyright © Sumi Kanazawa All Rights Reserved.

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